It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’m still here! I’ve been using every ounce of spare time to lesson plan and spend time with my family. However, I haven’t stopped baking!
Almost every Friday we go over to my in-law’s house and have dinner. To no surprise, I’m in charge of dessert! Over the past few months, I’ve utilized that excuse to make all sorts of desserts! Most every single one being a fellow food blogger’s recipe. I love trying other blogger’s recipes and posting a comment on their recipe to how it turned out. I haven’t tried a bad one yet! We’ve made everything from brown sugar pies to carrot cakes.
For this week’s dessert, I had a HUGE piece of fresh ginger just begging to be put into a moist cake. A ginger cake was just the thing, especially being in the holiday season. I used the complementary flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves to blend with the spicy fresh ginger. It did not disappoint! The flavor was just right.
I topped the cake off with my all time favorite cream cheese frosting from Amanda at i am baker. I use it for almost every since cake or cupcake I make! The two flavors of spicy ginger cake and melt-in-your-mouth cream cheese frosting were perfect.
A quick chocolate tree decoration on top and the cake was complete!
We continued to eat on this cake for three days and it got better every day! I just covered the cake and kept it in the refrigerator. Take the cake out about 1 hour before serving to bring to room temperature. Happy baking and eating!
Ginger Cake
adapted from Lightened Up Coconut Cake
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 4 eggs
- 3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 5 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup milk
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon fresh grated ginger
- (frosting) 1 package cream cheese, room temperature
- (frosting) 1 stick butter, room temperature
- (frosting) 4 cups powdered sugar
- (frosting) 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- (decorations) candy melts, sprinkles and skewers
How-To
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour (don’t forget this step!) three 8-inch cake pans.
- Beat the butter and sugars with an electric mixer until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time.
- In a separate bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, cinnamon nutmeg, cloves and salt.
- In yet another bowl, combine the milk, vanilla and ginger.
- Beat in the flour mixture and milk mixture, alternating, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
- Evenly pour the batter into the prepared cake pans and evenly spread it out.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a cake tester comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for 5 minutes before turning out onto cooling racks to cool completely.
- (frosting) Beat the cream cheese and butter together. Beat in the powdered sugar, one cup at a time. Lastly, beat in the vanilla. Frost the cake, putting a thin layer of frosting between the layers and cover the outside.
- Meanwhile, make your decorations by melting the candy melts and putting in a piping bag with a small round tip. Lay skewers on parchment paper and squeeze the candy melts over the skewers. Decorate with sprinkles. Allow to harden before placing on the cake.
Note: If you like heavier frosting, or crumb coating, make a double batch of frosting.
Note: I didn’t have green candy melts, so I used India Tree food dyes to color my white candy melts. It hardened up a bit, so I continued to stir in small slices of butter into the colored candy melts until it was a melted chocolate consistency.
Size: three layer 8″ cake. You could get away with making this into 12-16 slices.
